US teen finds prehistoric mastodon jaw in southern Iowa
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A teen searching for arrowheads in southern Iowa found something much bigger: the prehistoric jawbone of a mastodon.
The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that the 30-inch bone belonged to a juvenile mastodon, an elephant-like animal believed to have roamed Iowa some 34,000 years ago.
Officials with the University of Iowa Paleontology Repository, which now has possession of the bone found last week, say the mastodon might have stood around 7-feet tall.